


tea kettles and bathroom taps

by littlemissmeggie



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Happy Halloween!, Harry's a little bit of a scaredy cat, M/M, Niall humours him, They're cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 06:53:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12576152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemissmeggie/pseuds/littlemissmeggie
Summary: “Harry,” said Niall, walking down the stairs, “I think this house is haunted.”“I know!” exclaimed Harry loudly. “I’ve been saying that since we moved in!”“Yeah, I know,” agreed Niall. “Just didn’t believe you ‘til now.”or...Harry and Niall just wanted to make their own fake ghost hunting show but then scary little things actually started to happen and neither of them really knew what to do.





	tea kettles and bathroom taps

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written in response to an ask I received on tumblr last Halloween. It seemed like the perfect time to post it to AO3! Happy Halloween!

“Harry,” said Niall, walking down the stairs, “I think this house is haunted.” **  
**

“ _I know!_ ” exclaimed Harry loudly. “I’ve been saying that since we moved in!”

“Yeah, I know,” agreed Niall. “Just didn’t believe you ‘til now.”

“Why?” asked Harry in a hushed voice. “ _What happened?_ ”

“Just brushing me teeth and I seen something behind me in the mirror.”

“What did you see?” asked Harry, voice practically a whisper now.

Niall shook his head. “Not sure. Think it was an old man with something round his neck. A scarf or something.”

“Or maybe a  _noose!_ ” whispered Harry on an exhale, eyes wide as he looked at his husband.

Niall shrugged nonchalantly. “Maybe.”

*******

Niall and Harry sat cuddled together on the sofa, a blanket thrown over their laps because  _You can’t just watch scary movies without a blanket, Ni!_

“Reckon we could make a movie like this,” said Niall, nodding toward the television, the end credits of  _Paranormal Activity_  rolling on the screen.

Harry’s head snapped toward Niall, eyes and mouth open wide. “Oh my God!” he said enthusiastically. “Only it would be  _real!_ ”

*******

“Haz,” said Niall, “we’ve been sitting in this room with every light in the  _entire_  house turned off for, like, almost five hours.” Harry turned to look at Niall, the small camcorder in his hands aimed at Niall’s pale face. “I don’t think anything’s going to happen tonight. Maybe we should go to bed, yeah?”

“But Niall,” said Harry quietly, “that’s exactly what he  _wants_.”

Niall raised an eyebrow. “He?”

“Yes, Niall,” hissed Harry. “ _The ghost!_  He wants us to go to sleep so then he can come out and… do whatever ghosts do.”

Niall tried not to laugh. “Okay, pet. One more hour.”

*******

The second night of “production,” as Harry had decided to call it, was slightly more eventful. At around 2:30 in the morning, Niall and Harry heard what sounded like the master bathroom tap being turned on for a minute and then turned back off. With Harry holding onto Niall’s arm with a death grip and Niall directing the camcorder, they made their way from the pitch black kitchen up the equally dark stairs, brightened only by the torch Harry held in a shaky hand, through the dark bedroom and into the dark bathroom.

With the light from the torch, because Harry refused to turn the lights on, they saw that the sink was wet and the marble counter around the bowl was splashed with water.

*******

The next day was a grey, stormy day. Harry and Niall lit a fire in their big fireplace and spent the day in the living room, cozy in the room’s warmth.

Harry insisted on having the video camera in case anything happened because  _It’s a spooky day, Niall. He might come out._

At around 3:00, during a lull in the storm, Harry shrieked at the top of his lungs. Niall turned to find Harry with the camcorder pointed out the living room window.

“He was there! In the mirror!”

“What?” asked Niall.

“I saw him in the mirror!” Harry pointed frantically at the mirror that hung on the wall opposite the window. “Outside the window! And then I turned around!”

“You saw something in the mirror?” asked Niall.

“ _Yes_ , Niall! I saw the ghost in the mirror and I turned around to look behind me and he was standing outside the window,” said Harry, a hint of panic in his voice.

Niall blinked a few times. “Are you sure you saw something?”

“ _Niall!_ ” whined Harry. “I’m  _sure!_  I think I got it on video.”

“Okay,” said Niall. “Let’s, um, let’s maybe watch the video, yeah?”

“You don’t believe me!” said Harry accusatorily.

And no, honestly, Niall thought that Harry’s imagination was getting the better of him.

Because Niall didn’t  _actually_  think there was a ghost in their house. This whole thing, this ghost hunter video, was meant to be a trick for Halloween. He was going to make little things happen around the house, little things like the water trick the night before—a clever bit of work by Louis, who snuck into the house through the garage and hid in the bedroom closet until Niall had led Harry back downstairs for a cup of tea to calm him—until he revealed his trick on Halloween.

But he’d not asked Louis to do anything today until after midnight. He’d not asked him to do  _anything_  at 3:00 in the afternoon.

“I’ll  _show_  you,” huffed Harry, angling the camcorder’s screen so Niall could see it and pressing play.

Niall watched as the Harry in the video looked at not only his own reflection in the mirror but also that of an older man with a very pale face and dark hair dressed all in black, a rope around his neck; Niall thought that he looked vaguely familiar, like he’d maybe seen some photographs of him before. And he watched as the camera turned from the mirror toward the window just in time to see the pale man quickly duck out of the window frame.

“Do you know who that was?” asked Harry, obviously quite shaken.

“No,” said Niall.

“You remember Tom and- Tom and Angela? They, you know, they lived here? Before us?”

“Y-es,” said Niall.

“That’s Angela’s  _dad!_ ” whispered Harry.

Niall ignored the first question that came to his mind—how did Harry know Angela’s dad—and skipped to the second.

“Is he dead?”

“I- I think so. She showed me pictures and… Yeah, I think he’s dead,” answered Harry.

“Okay, well. Um, okay,” said Niall a bit nervously.

This was  _not_  what he’d expected.

*******

A few hours later, the tea kettle whistled from the kitchen.

“I’ll take a cuppa,” said Niall from where he lay on the sofa nearest the fireplace.

“You turned the kettle on, you make the tea,” said Harry a little grumpily.

Niall looked over at him, wrapped up in a blanket with the camcorder clutched in his hands. “I didn’t turn it on.”

Harry’s eyes widened more than Niall thought possible. “Neither did I,” he squeaked out.

“Okay, then,” said Niall. “Together?”

Harry whined.

“There’s no one- There’s no one here,” said Niall dumbly as they entered the kitchen.

“ _Of course not_ , Niall,” said Harry, exasperated. “It’s the  _ghost_.”

Niall wanted to roll his eyes but found he couldn’t really because, yeah, how else could he explain it. He moved to the hob and turned off the burner.

*******

At about 10:00, Harry and Niall heard footsteps in their bedroom. Upon investigating, they found nothing, not even footprints.

*******

“Harry,” said Niall, a few hours later as they sat huddled together by the fireplace, “I have a confession.”

Harry turned his head and looked at Niall. “A confession?”

“I- I asked Louis to, um, to turn on the tap last night. To, like, to scare you,” said Niall. “And he’s, uh, supposed to be- supposed to be coming back tonight. Like, soon.”

“ _Louis_ ,” hissed Harry. “ _Double-crosser._ ”

“What?” asked Niall.

“ _I_  asked Louis to do the bit outside. The ghost. That’s, um, that was Mr. Johnson,” admitted Harry. “Louis’ boss, you know.”

“Okay,” said Niall, pushing aside his irritation with Louis and his double-crossing ways. “But what about the kettle? And the footsteps?”

“I didn’t ask him to do those,” said Harry.

“Neither did I,” said Niall.

“Niall, maybe- maybe this house really  _is_  haunted,” whispered Harry.

“Or,” came Louis’ smug voice from behind them, “I decided to have a bit of fun on me own!”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! comments and kudos are always appreciated, even on short little drabbles and oneshot! 
> 
> please come find me on [tumblr](http://littlemissmeggie.tumblr.com/) and say hello! i'm quite friendly.


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